Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Reynolds, William (1625-1698)
REYNOLDS, WILLIAM (1625–1698), dissenting minister, son of William Reynolds, was born on 28 Oct. 1625 at Bures St. Mary (Essex and Suffolk), while the plague was raging in London. The father, William Reynolds, who lived in Abchurch Lane, London, was at first a cloth worker, and afterwards became a Russia merchant trading in copperas. After being educated partly at Bilson, near Hadley, and partly in London, the son was admitted in May 1641 to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where from 1643 to the summer of 1644 John Whitlock [q. v.], his lifelong friend, was his chamber fellow. On his graduating B.A. in midsummer 1644, he was sent by his father to Russia to replace his elder brother as factor. In August 1645 his father died, leaving his affairs greatly embarrassed, and Reynolds landed in England in May 1646 to find his father's estate gone, and a brother a prisoner for debt in the king's bench. His brother escaped, and William was imprisoned in Ludgate on suspicion of complicity. By the end of summer 1646, on the recapture of his brother in Wales, he was released, and in December of the same year he went to aid his old friend, John Whitlock, in his cure at Leighton.
Reynolds proceeded M.A. at Cambridge in 1648, and on 10 Oct. 1649 was, along with Whitlock, incorporated at Oxford. Both refused the ‘engagement,’ and in March 1650–1651 they left Leighton to become ministers of St. Mary's, Nottingham. They were ordained in October 1651 by the ministers of the eighth London classis in St. Andrew Undershaft, London, and, adopting presbyterian discipline at Nottingham, chose elders and deacons. In 1653 they built a parsonage-house. In 1656 the Nottingham ministers formed a classis of their own. Reynolds signed the original undated draft of the association (MS. Nottingham Minutes), and almost uninterruptedly till 1660 attended the meetings, some of which were held in his house, he acting as moderator. The two friends continued their joint ministrations, despite some obstruction, till within two months of Bartholomew day (Conformists' Fourth Plea for the Nonconformists, pp. 36, 37, 43, 44, 77). In October 1662 they removed to Colwich Hall, a house belonging to Sir John Mason. In 1665 they were imprisoned for twelve weeks at the Black Moor's Head Inn (Nottingham), and afterwards, living in the neighbourhood, preached where they could in the town. At midsummer 1668 they removed to Mansfield, thenceforth preaching every fortnight at Nottingham. In March 1684–5 they were both committed to Nottingham county gaol, till July 1685, ‘for coming to a borough town,’ but on Monmouth's landing in June they were sent prisoners to Hull. They were released in August. On 14 Oct. 1687, after nineteen years' sojourn at Mansfield, they returned to Nottingham, where they continued their joint ministry till Reynolds's death. Reynolds died at Nottingham on 26 Feb. 1697–8.
On 10 May 1652 Reynolds married Susanna, daughter of Alderman Mellor. She died in April 1671, leaving two sons and two daughters. The younger daughter was married in 1684 to Samuel Coates, minister at Mansfield, Nottinghamshire.
He published, in 1658, a funeral sermon on ‘Francis Pierepont,’ third son of Robert Pierrepont, first earl of Kingston [q. v.]
[Transcripts, in the writer's possession, of the manuscript minutes of the Nottingham classical assembly, preserved in the High Pavement chapel, Nottingham, and of the fourth London classis; Whitlock's Short Account of the Life of Reynolds, 1698; Barrett's Sermon preached at the Funeral of Mr. Reynolds, 1 March 1697–8; Heywood's Diaries; Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Cartwright's Nonconf. in Nottingham; Calamy's Account and Nonconformists' Memorial, iii. 101; Historical Manuscripts Commission, 7th Rep. p. 132.]